


4:36 a.m.

by juliettes



Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Lucas is a Brat in Love, M/M, Sharing a Bed, made that up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 04:52:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18542656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juliettes/pseuds/juliettes
Summary: it’s four thirty-six a.m. when lucas wakes to the sound of coughing.





	4:36 a.m.

**Author's Note:**

> this is basically just some fluffy domesticity involving sickening amounts of flirting that's probably too long for what it is but oh well.

it’s four thirty-six a.m. when lucas wakes to the sound of coughing. he blinks away the sleep in his eyes, suddenly aware of the warmth of someone else’s body beside him, suddenly aware that he isn’t in a lonely slumber. a wet patch has formed on the pillow where his mouth was pressed against it and sitting up a bit, looking around, lucas flips the pillow over, suddenly embarrassed. and then he’s wrapping his arms around eliott’s torso, resting his chin on his shoulder, strangely pleased with how small the mattress is and what it means he can do. most nights it’s become routine, a casual _yours or mine?_ and maybe they fool around or kiss until their lips are bruised or watch movies in english without any subtitles, or maybe they do all three at once.

four forty-two— the clock reads. a cough. eliott shudders in his arms, soft and unassuming. lucas blinks awake. the mattress sighs when he sits up fully now, twisting around to switch on the lamp. eliott sighs, too.

“ _eliott_.”

he pokes him on the shoulder once or twice, and possibly more times for a verification that he is indeed still alive and breathing. a huff finally comes out after a couple more iterations of poking. eliott rolls over the other way, groaning hoarsely. in hindsight a thermometer would’ve probably been a better idea, but lucas’ brain is still too sleep-heavy when his hands find eliott’s forehead, his cheeks, arms, ribs. eliott leans into his touch. lucas doesn’t pull away.

“eliott, i think you’re sick.”

around them, the silence is dormant. watery blue eyes meet his own through the hazy yellow light. for a moment lucas’ lungs fail him, and maybe his heart, too. they stay like that for a while, lucas looming over him, eliott staring back. “no, i’m not,” he finally replies. because the lamp is old the light often falters, drawing long shadows on all the sharp and soft angles of eliott’s face.

an eyebrow is raised. “you are.” lucas’s palm still rests against his chest and he can feel the faintest rabbit-quick pulse under him.

at this, he smiles, _wide_.

“i’m not,” and eliott’s sitting up now, until inches of cold air are all that separates them. this close, his eyes remind him of the sea before a storm.

“monsieur demaury, i think you are.” but all the consonants come out crooked, because eliott moves close, closer, until he’s a mere breath away, and lucas has so many of those butterfly wings pressed against his ribcage, thrumming, wanting out. his eyes dart down to his mouth. even under these sickly lights, eliott somehow manages to have skin in estival shades.

“— _ah_ ,” eliott breathes out. “if i am i guess you can’t kiss me, then.”

“i could live with that.”

“could you?”

“we could always try it out if you want to so bad,” lucas shrugs, trying for nonchalance. he fails, though. of course he does. heat stains his entire neck and climbs up to the tips of his ears when eliott raises a finger to tip his chin forward. the warmth stinging his face is disconcerting. utterly incongruous, even. bordering on embarrassing. maybe he’s the one with a fever. eliott revels in it, rubbing slow circles on his chin with his thumb with a grin playing at the corners of his mouth.

“well i wouldn’t want to put you through that.”

lucas catches his wrist before he can move away. “at this rate you might have to,” and then he threads their fingers together to press a kiss against the ridges of his knuckles, liking the way eliott seems to suck in a breath, looking at him from heavy eyelids, smile lost to the bite on his lip. lucas sees him swallow.

“maybe.”

“ _maybe_.”

outside, the stars come out of hiding to the naked eye, high above the tainted teals and the cynic coldness the city wraps itself in. inside, though, is warm. sketches are pinned on the cream walls of eliott’s apartment, and so are their pictures, vignettes, some with them, just them, some with their friends. white sheets pool at their waists as lucas presses a kiss on the corner of eliott’s mouth, lingering for a brief moment. he shuffles back until he’s sat away from eliott. “ _lucas_ ,” eliott warns, voice quiet chaos. lucas just shrugs. there’s a warm hand at his elbow, trying to draw him close again. eliott’s voice startles him, after a minute: “i don’t think i could live with that, actually.”

“you’re sick,” lucas points out, mostly to himself.

“i’m not—” but then eliott turns his head, to cough into the crook of his arm. he lifts an eyebrow. the air is frigid around his bare legs when lucas climbs out of bed with a begrudging sigh, wearing a frown on his face as he pads toward the kitchen, toward the medicine cabinet. eliott’s apartment is no longer unfamiliar; there are things he owns now belonging there, things that found itself there, incidentally or not. the shirt on the sofa, rock vinyls, sheet music, toothbrush, skinny jeans, his heart. he smiles at the sight of a polaroid (the louvre, faceless, a private kind of picture, hands fisting shirts and the smooth curve of a neck) stuck to the cabinet housing pasta when he’s rifling through the medication for paracetamol. quietly, almost silently, floorboards snap, and lucas startles at the arms that wrap around his waist. “come back to bed.” eliott buries his face into the crook of his neck then, inhaling deeply, carrying on, “it’s cold in there without you.” the order is delicate, but the lingering kiss he presses under lucas’ jaw is not.

it takes his best efforts to ignore what eliott’s doing, the lips on his neck, the fingers trailing up and down his hip. “you’ll be warm yourself when you come down with a fever,” lucas says, dry as sand, laughing a bit too loudly for the a.m. when eliott turns him around. armed with paracetamol, he pushes the foil packet against eliott’s chest. “your nose is running.”

“ _shit_ — really?” eliott sniffs. he tilts his head back and lucas watches him, vaguely amused, curiously enchanted. after eliott is done sniffling, tissue in hand, he seems to notice lucas’ silence and mutters, “i’m not sick.”

“right. yeah.”

maybe eliott’s mouth opens and closes and opens a few more times to start sentences that don’t finish. lucas steps closer, a challenge, a dare. eliott doesn’t step back. the floorboards creak. it’s cold underneath his feet. nighttime presses against the windows, and eliott is faintly illuminated by the distant streetlamps, light just a glimmer on his pupils. he hears the slow but sharp inhale when he stands on his toes, so they stand more level. so he can better see how his mouth seems to part the slightest.

a radiator whirs. somebody else’s floor groans somewhere in the apartment complex.

“you’re — _otherworldly_ ,” eliott murmurs all of a sudden.

“oh.” a pause. lucas drops down on his heels. heat blossoms inside his chest. “i’ll make you some tea.”

“i’m serious, lucas.”

lucas stares at him, trying for flatness. “i’m serious about you taking paracetamol, too.”

“i don’t want you to always feel the need to take care of me,” eliott says into the silence beside him while lucas is trying to turn on the stove. he looks sideways, briefly. blue and orange flares to life, kettle beginning to hum. away from the stove, lucas takes careless steps toward him, stepping into his space, between his legs, cradling his face. eliott’s eyes flutter shut as he leans into his touch. the laugh he lets out is dry. “fuck, i think i have a headache.” it comes out soft, sibilant, small.

“ _hey_ —” he whispers, “i do it because i want to.” and the he adds, quickly, diffidently: “because i love you.” (the feeling is exquisite; love a noun too heavy for words it makes everything else in his mouth go awry, choking all the air out of his lungs, skin going all sorts of red.) to lucas’ surprise, eliott’s eyes open. the kettle screams. still, he stays, shifting in until all their lines are pressed together, until eliott breathes out, shaky, and nods. “minute by minute.” a thumb presses lightly on the dimple on eliott’s chin, tilting it toward him. “you don’t have to take it if you don’t want to.”

“i know,” eliott sighs, leaning against the counter. “you should check on the kettle.”

the mug is hot in his hands when he hands it over to eliott. together they sit on the sofa, eliott’s sketches hardly visible in the half light. there are two steaming mugs of tea in front of him. he burns his tongue on it. eliott takes the paracetamol. he’s shivering now, even after the tea gets finished and the mug is washed out, even under the duvet and the radiator blowing hot, hot air all over them. lucas stares, helpless. somehow eliott still finds a way to have his limbs wrapped all around him, clingy, and blatantly so. he finds that he likes it, how often eliott lacks embarrassment when it comes to wanting to touch him, kiss him, hold him. the knowledge floods his body with the deepest kinds of warmth.

six a.m. climbs up the sides of buildings in a dozen cobalt shades, and lucas is wide awake.

they need to get up soon, probably, but lucas lies by his side, watching the rise and fall of eliott’s chest, stammering occasionally when a cough starts at the back of his throat. all at once he’s keenly aware of the time and the mess inside his chest. eliott breaks out into random cold sweats between the hours, never fully awake. he brings out damp, cold towels to wipe away the sweat, brushing the hair stuck to his forehead, and he helps him out of his shirt into another one, and he brings him glasses of water when he rouses from his fretful slumber wanting it. lucas doesn’t sleep. eventually, around seven, seven-fifteen to be exact, eliott’s fever breaks. his stirring lessens, and lucas can see how he’s sleeping deeper, better.

lucas is quick to fall into a restless slumber after that. it lasts exactly thirty-two minutes before yellow light begins to bother his eyes, and it’s cold with the heater turned off, the air getting suffocating without it, almost. eliott is still fast asleep beside him, faced the other way. his body aches from lying in an awkward position. several empty glasses sit on the bedside table, and it’s placed in the sink after he gets dressed, careful to keep quiet, vision blurry around the edges as he goes about tidying the room.

when the clock hits eight a.m. lucas is fumbling around trying to put his sneakers on. eliott walks out barefoot into the foyer, light eyes and hair a mess, shirt severely wrinkled. steam comes out when he breathes. lucas is late and he’s about to leave, but eliott’s voice, sleepy and soft, calls out to him. “what time is it?”

“nearly eight-thirty.” his voice comes out scratchy. something bothers his throat and lucas coughs a little, to clear it. this close, eliott appears a bit more dishevelled-looking, like he’s not fully awake. he drags his sore body forward to meet him halfway. “i’m going to be—,” but then he sneezes, and sniffles, and sighs, “i’m going to be late.”

eliott’s hands fall at lucas’ hips. he smiles, openly. “let’s ditch today.”

“i can’t,” but his nose is feeling stuffy and a headache is forming between his temples, and he can feel himself cave. maybe a little, maybe a lot. “ _i can’t_.”

“you can. it’s friday. text arthur.” a beat, word dripping with the faintest hint of dismay, he adds: “please?” lucas inhales, tired. it's difficult to deny him. eliott tugs him in to hug him tight, burying his face into lucas’ neck, breathing deeply. “thank you and sorry. for last night. and—” a breath “every other night.”

he runs a hand along eliott's spine. "you're worth it," and it's the most faithful thing he's said for somebody faithless.

at that eliott seems to step back a bit to search his face, wordless, and lucas' chest burns copiously.

"you're—" _beautiful_. the sentence completes itself. it never gets old.

it's quiet for a while, eliott cups his face with both hands. all of a sudden a yawn interrupts, and unsurprisingly enough, he chuckles. “i need to sleep."

“we can do that,” eliott says, sounding apologetic. he peers down at lucas’ lips, eyes somewhat stormy and equally as wry, unabashedly wanting, a grin playing at his mouth when lucas snorts, craning his neck back, wanting it just as much if not more.

“you can’t kiss it better,” he utters into the soft silence, just because. “that’s not how it works, eliott.”

there’s a pause, eliott looking away, as if needing to contemplate. “i can take care of you, though.” lucas huffs out something like a laugh, shaking his head. he earns a crinkly smile in return. _a fool_ , that’s what he is. it fascinates him as much as it scares him how often eliott can get under his skin like he gets under his covers. “ _lucas_ ,” it's a plea, a prayer, eliott stepping back, tugging on his hand, morning light playing with the odd hues in his hair, “the bed is calling for you.”

lucas follows him recklessly. he always will.

when his body hits the mattress, eliott is taking his shoes off, his shirt, his jeans, replacing it with sweatpants and not without kissing the bare skin his fingertips skip across. eliott still seems a bit lethargic, but lucas is no different. he holds the duvet up, to let him under. and then eliott is climbing on top of him, heavy, hovering over him, brushing the hair out of his eyes. “i wasn’t lying about what i said last night.” his touch is delicate, ever so soft. lucas sighs and sighs and sighs.

“what did you say last night?”

“i don’t know,” eliott shrugs playfully. then he laughs, kissing him deeply, tongue dragging along the seam of his bottom lip — and it’s allaying. lucas smiles into it. he almost goes light-headed.

paris awakens while he falls, falls, falls into slumber, cuddled up into eliott’s side, not waking until it’s too many hours later, and when he wakes eliott has fingers splayed on his jaw, the room tinged blue around them, traffic seeping through the gaps on windows from several floors below, distant, vague. there's heaviness in the hollows of his ribs at the sight. 

“what?”

“— you’re gorgeous.” his bluntness makes lucas' heart stutter, capricious, cheeks shaded red, then. at the lack of response he seems to frown. "you okay?"

"are you?" eliott shrugs. he slides his arms around eliott's neck, climbing on top of him, body going all sorts of hot. a second, two, three— "do you want to kiss it better?"

 

(they don’t go back to sleep.)


End file.
